Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger

Two days later, Ram Persad and the slanty-eyed Nepali were gossiping. I took a broom, began sweeping the courtyard, and edged closer and closer to them.

"She's a Christian, did you know?"

"No way."

"Yes!"

"And he married her?"

"They married in America. When we Indians go there, we lose all respect for caste," the Nepali said.

"The old man was dead set against the marriage. Her people were not happy either."

"So-how did it happen?"

The Nepali glared at me. "Hey, are you eavesdropping on us?"

"No, sir."

One morning there was a knocking on the door of the drivers' quarters, and when I went out, Pinky Madam was standing with two rackets in her hand.

A net had been tied between two poles in one corner of the courtyard; she got on one side of the net and I got on the other side. She hit the shuttle-it rose up, and then fell near my foot.

"Hey! Move! Hit it back!"

"Sorry, madam. I'm so sorry."

I'd never played this game before. I hit the shuttle back to her, and it went straight into the net.

"Oh, you're useless . Where is that other driver?"

Ram Persad dashed up to the net at once. He had been watching the game all the time from the side. He knew exactly how to play badminton.

I watched him hit the shuttle cleanly over the net and match her shot for shot, and my belly burned.

Is there any hatred on earth like the hatred of the number two servant for the number one?

Though we slept in the same room, just a few feet apart, we never said a word to each other-never a Hello, or How's your mother doing, nothing. I could feel heat radiate out from him all night-I knew he was cursing me and putting spells on me in his sleep. See, he began every day by bowing in front of at least twenty pictures of various gods he kept in his side of the room, and saying, " Om, om, om." As he did this, he looked at me through the corner of his eye, as if to say, Don't you pray? What are you, a Naxal?

One evening I went to the market and bought two dozen of the cheapest idols of Hanuman and Ram I could find and brought them back and packed them into the room. So both of us now had the same number of gods in the room; and we drowned out each other's prayers in the morning while bowing before our respective deities.

The Nepali was hand in hand with Ram Persad. One day he burst into my room and put a big plastic bucket down on the floor with a thud.

"Do you like dogs, village boy?" he asked with a big smile.

There were two white Pomeranians in the house-Cuddles and Puddles. The rich expect their dogs to be treated like humans, you see-they expect their dogs to be pampered, and walked, and petted, and even washed! And guess who had to do the washing? I got down on my knees and began scrubbing the dogs, and then lathering them, and foaming them, and then washing them down, and taking a blow dryer and drying their skin. Then I took them around the compound on a chain while the king of Nepal sat in a corner and shouted, "Don't pull the chain so hard! They're worth more than you are!"

By the time I was done with Puddles and Cuddles, I walked back, sniffing my hands-the only thing that can take the smell of dog skin off a servant's hands is the smell of his master's skin.

Mr. Ashok was standing outside my room.

I ran up to him and bowed low. He went into the room; I followed, still crouched over. He bent low to make his way through the doorway-the doorway was built for undernourished servants, not for a tall, well-fed master like him. He looked at the ceiling dubiously.

"How awful," he said.

Until then I had never noticed how the paint on the ceiling was peeling off in large flakes, and how there were spiderwebs in every corner. I had been so happy in this room until now.

"Why is there such a smell? Open the windows."

He sat down on Ram Persad's bed and poked it with his fingertips. It felt hard. I immediately stopped being jealous of Ram Persad.

(And so I saw the room with his eyes; smelled it with his nose; poked it with his fingers-I had already begun to digest my master!)

He looked in my direction, but avoided my gaze, as if he were guilty about something.

"You and Ram Persad will both get a better room to sleep in. And separate beds. And some privacy."

"Please don't do that, sir. This place is like a palace for us."

That made him feel better. He looked at me.

"You're from Laxmangarh, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I was born in Laxmangarh. But I haven't seen it since. Were you born there too?"

"Yes, sir. Born and raised there."

"What's it like?"

Before I could answer, he said, "It must be so nice."

"Like paradise, sir."

He looked me up and down, from head to toe, the way I had been looking at him ever since I had come to the house.

His eyes seemed full of wonder: how could two such contrasting specimens of humanity be produced by the same soil, sunlight, and water?

"Well, I want to go there today," he said, getting up from the bed. "I want to see my birthplace. You'll drive me."

"Yes, sir!"

Going home! And in my uniform, driving the Stork's car, chatting up his son and daughter-in-law!

I was ready to fall at his feet and kiss them!

The Stork had wanted to come along with us, and that would really make it a grand entry for me into the village-but at the last minute he decided to stay back. In the end, it was just Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam whom I was taking in the Honda City, out into the countryside, toward Laxmangarh.

It was the first time I was driving the two of them-Ram Persad had had the privilege until now. I still wasn't used to the Honda City, which is a moody car with a mind of its own, as I've said. I just prayed to the gods-all of them-not to let me make a mistake.

They said nothing for half an hour. Sometimes you can feel as a driver when there is tension in the car; it raises the temperature inside. The woman inside the car was very angry.

"Why are we going to this place in the middle of nowhere, Ashoky?" Her voice, breaking the silence at last.

"It's my ancestral village, Pinky. Wouldn't you like to see it? I was born there-but Father sent me away as a boy. There was some trouble with the Communist guerrillas then. I thought we could-"

"Have you decided on a return date?" she asked suddenly. "I mean to New York."

"No. Not yet. We'll get one soon."

He was silent for a minute; my ears were really wide open now. If they went back to America -would they no longer need a second driver in the home?

She said nothing; but I swear, I could hear teeth gritting.

Mr. Ashok had no clue, though-he began humming a film song, until she said, "What a fucking joke."

"What was that?"

"You lied about returning to America, didn't you, Ashok-you're never going back, are you?"

"There's a driver in the car, Pinky-I'll explain everything later."

"Oh, what does he matter! He's only the driver. And you're just changing the topic again!"

A lovely fragrance filled the car-and I knew that she must have moved about and adjusted her clothes.

"Why do we even need a driver? Why can't you drive, like you used to?"

"Pinky, that was New York -you can't drive in India, just look at this traffic. No one follows any rules-people run across the road like crazy-look-look at that-"

A tractor was coming down the road at full speed, belching out a nice thick plume of black diesel from its exhaust pipe.

"It's on the wrong side of the road! The driver of that tractor hasn't even noticed!"

I hadn't noticed either. Well, I suppose you are meant to drive on the left side of the road, but until then I had never known anyone to get agitated over this rule.